Alaska Girls Kick Ass - Understanding the Culture that Produced Sarah Palin

September 19, 2008

Alaska Girls Kick Ass
Understanding the Culture that Produced Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin is the classic Alaska Girl.

An email that is making the rounds:

"Sarah Palin was put on earth to do two things: shoot caribou and kick ass. She’s all out of caribou."

[Before the humorless greenies scream ... it’s just a joke! We have lots of caribou. In fact we have such vast herds rumbling over the tundra that they resemble the black waves of bison that met the early explorers in the
uncharted western part of the lower nation. So few people have any real
understanding of the state. I read a nationally syndicated columnist laughing in print after reading something that estimated the size of one of our herds; so certain was he of the impossibility that such vast amounts of wildlife still existed anywhere in the world. He was absolutely convinced that the article he had read had goofed up by a couple of decimal places.]

But back to Sarah. Even those who can’t stand her politics generally acknowledge that she is a good representation of our female contingent. And we are proud of our women!


"Coldest State - Hottest Governor".

That saying was around long before she was tapped for the veep seat.

The ubiquity of bumper stickers that declare the main title of today’s column [Alaska Girls Kick Ass] strongly suggests that the female contingent in this state does not suffer from a lack of self esteem. The noticeable fact that a surprising percentage of the cars wearing such bumpers stickers belong to men enforce the conclusion that we think pretty highly of our women up here. In fact, we’re pretty sure that if the Beach Boys had made it to the state that they would have wished all the women could be Alaska Girls :-)

Or, maybe not. It may take a special breed of men to properly appreciate our women. It is a frontier admiration that we have. On the frontier women were always considered to be full partners and worked right alongside their men. Women (who wouldn’t stoop to working or getting their hands dirty) who were acquired for show and tell didn’t come along until "civilization" and wealth did. The same is true of the "middle-class stay at home and raise the babies" women. That all said ... frontier women in the "old days" were still constrained from many things. Women are vastly more "liberated" now and that, combined the frontier partnership ethic and cultural mentality makes Alaska women a lot farther along the "liberation highway" than those from more "civilized" states. But, males and females both enjoy a culture where a woman dirt-biker is just a normal Alaska girl.

Decorative females are for places like New York or the Urbania east of the Mississippi.

"Urbane" is not a compliment up here and if you told an Alaska man that you thought he was you might discover a pressing need for some dental work. Nor do we have any use for the stereotypical empty headed blonde vacuous Valley Girls of Beach Boys fame. This is, after all, the state in which the classic classified personals ad originated:

"Wanted - Woman with boat. Send picture of boat".

Don’t get me wrong. We believe our women, on average, can out-Vogue those from anywhere else, but a frontier woman is admired for more than just her looks. We expect her to be comfortable working the slime line at the cannery and slopping around in a fish-hold full of dead and dying salmon. We expect her to be proud of her aim with a rifle and able, in a pinch, to field dress a moose on her own. We expect them to find that a fun weekend, or a good summer job, will result in dirt under their fingernails. Unless there is no dirt present at that time of year; then our women do things like win the Iditarod! We assume that they are the smarter half of the specie and can quickly show us where we screwed up trying to balance the checkbook. We turn to them for problem solving.

Even the most macho men are used to women often being the boss where they work. Not only is it "tolerated" ... it is so common and accepted that it isn’t even a topic. My wife has had several men who worked for her in her position as a department head. She’s never even bumped into it as an issue. "Real Alaskans" have to explain the concept of a "glass ceiling" to our daughters as "in the old days Outside" or "in some parts of the world" or even, sadly, "in other parts of our country" ... because it isn’t something they notice in their world. Everyone thought it was cool that we elected a female Governor, but it wasn’t treated as a mold shattering event.

The reason that Sarah is the first is ... well, for starters, we haven’t had many governors. There have only been nine since Statehood including Sarah, and one of those only finished out the small part of Governor Hickel's first term. We had a couple who served twice at different times [Egan and Hickel] and, interestingly we alternate fairly regularly between Democrats and Republicans. Before Sarah we had four of each ... and one from the Alaska Independence Party. Yes, for all you mathematicians out there, that equals nine out of eight Governors. I'm really not that bad at math :-) Governor Hickel, who had served as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior (which is why he had to cut his first term short) ran several years later as a member of the AIP. I make this digression into the State's political history to emphasize the absurdity of the media's obsession with Todd having been a member of the AIP at one time. (Despite initial press reports, mistakenly started by AIP itself, Sarah was never a member.) The impression that they give Outsiders is that this is some strange cult-like entity. Up here it is part of the landscape. It is as "politically correct" as voting for Nader is in California. As noted, an ex-U.S. Secretary of the Interior was elected Governor on the AIP ticket. Hmm. I guess that makes it a lot more politically correct than voting for Nader! :-)

The other reason that Sarah was our first female Governor is that very few women ever expressed serious interest in the job. If they don’t run, it is difficult to elect them.

We’re used to selecting women as leaders and that is just a natural ingrained mentality that demonstrates itself early in life. By kindergarten, the boys know that the girls are in charge. I know of no survey on the subject, but I would hazard a guess [as the father of two teenagers] that the majority of the office holders in high school student governments and the presidents of the various clubs are female. That continues after high school. Throughout the communities of the state, women are at least as likely as men to be in positions of authority ... with the possible exception of industries of Big Oil; the good old boy redneck carpetbaggers who hail mostly from Texas and Oklahoma.

But even that subset of the population has become more Alaskan over time. When oil was discovered and the oil men showed up with their cowboy hats, cigars, and boots you couldn’t walk in, they were a standing joke without a word being spoken. And their arrogance was mind-boggling.

"Why, 'fore we showed up there was nuthin’ here but a bunch of poor dumb Indians and slime-covered commercial fishermen."

[That isn't an exact quote of one of the upper muckety-mucks of a Big Oil company. It was made and reported in the '70s and my only reference is my memory. But it is very close.] And in defense of truth, I must admit that there was some accuracy to the underlying concept despite the vulgarity of its delivery. Oil did bring wealth to Alaska. It changed it drastically. But much of the underlying culture still remains.

We get along fine with the offspring of those Big Hats. In fact we find we have a lot in common with Texas, too. I wasn't much pleased at the way they showed up and often seemed to think they were bringing culture and civilization to us heathens. Indeed, that sort of thought was utterly serious, intending to demonstrate how good for the State Big Oil was. But that was a long time ago and fortunately, it didn’t work out that way. Over the decades, those who fell in love with the frontier and Alaskan lifestyle self-selected and most of the big hats went back to Texas. By now we have the children of that first wave hitting their 20s and 30s. These "kids" grew up in Alaska’s culture. Although some still carry a bit of a drawling accent picked up from their families and some attitudes passed on from father to son ... it is turning out that Alaska is changing them culturally more than they changed us. They are integrating and many of them are now "real Alaskans" even with the drawl and job in the oilfields. Much of that initial wave of oil people never really integrated into Alaska culture. They had their own enclaves; their own social groupings. Alaska was their adventure. Home never left Texas. And those folks mostly went "home" long ago. We get along fine with Texans these days.

And now that Palin has been house [and senate :-)] cleaning and a bunch of the remaining "big hats" are heading for the "big house" ... the one with bars on the doors instead of decorative cattle horns ... I expect that Big Oil’s effect on our culture will diminish even more. You have to go to specialty stores now to buy cowboy boots.

But Sarah was never part of that culture. She is "pioneer stock". Her parents journeyed up here in the early 60s because it was the frontier; not because oil had recently been discovered near Swanson River. She and Todd were those "slime-covered commercial fishermen" the big hats referred to so dismissively. Todd is one of those "poor dumb Indians". [He is not, of course. He is not poor; he is not dumb; and he is not an "Indian". He is part Yupik which is Eskimo, not Indian, but the big hats never seemed to make the distinction.] Thinking back, I suppose I heard the Indians referred to more often as "Eskimos" than I did the Eskimos referred to as Indian.

But Sarah Palin is one of us. Alaska claims her as a child of the land. Her political views will be the subject of other columns, some already partially composed :-) But setting those to the side for the purpose of this column, she is a prime representative of the Alaska Woman. And, potential political differences aside, all real Alaskans are pleased to have her as our representative of "Alaska girls" to the world.
The lady kicks ass ;-)